{"id":"PNG3","label":"Wapei","people_or_site":"Wapei","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"West Sepik","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"","source_term":"","source_language":"English","object_description":"bullroarer occurrence; sacred flute occurrence; slit-gong occurrence; slit-gong use","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"gourlay1975_sound_producing","source_type":"source_catalog","source_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.30000082089644","page_or_plate":"Table 1, row 3 (West Sepik, \"Wapei\")","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Olo language-area point in the Torricelli foothills, Sandaun (Glottolog), standing for the Wapei; an area anchor.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Among the Wape — Olo-speaking villagers on the inland slopes of the Torricelli Mountains in West Sepik — every child is born into a named patrilineage identified by its own slit-gong signal. At the curing festivals, dancing is restricted to women and youths, who shuffle in a circle round the dance plaza to the beat of the booming slit-gongs and hand-held dance drums. The greatest of these gatherings is the spirit fish-curing festival, which can bring together many hundreds of people from neighboring villages. The Wape hold that all things have a spirit, that the recently dead and the demons are the most dangerous, and that at death the spirit leaves the body through the anus and becomes a rapacious ghost before retiring to its lineage lands. The Wape appear as the Wapei in Gourlay's 1975 survey of New Guinea sound-producing instruments, with a bullroarer and a sacred flute listed alongside the slit-gong, though William Mitchell, the ethnographer of the Wape, documents the slit-gongs and dance drums in detail without recording either a bullroarer or a sacred flute.","pull_quote":"Ancestral ghosts and the demons resident on one's land are perceived as being very active forces in everyday life. Since these spirits are omniscient, a person offends them at her or his peril.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"William E. Mitchell, \"Wape,\" Encyclopedia of World Cultures (1991)","term_gloss":"","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"K. A. Gourlay, Sound-Producing Instruments in Traditional Society: A Study of Esoteric Instruments and Their Role in Male-Female Relations (New Guinea Research Bulletin 60; Canberra and Port Moresby, 1975), Table 1, p. 5, entry 3; William E. Mitchell, 'Wape,' Encyclopedia of World Cultures (1991)","url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.30000082089644"}],"source_citations":"K. A. Gourlay, Sound-Producing Instruments in Traditional Society: A Study of Esoteric Instruments and Their Role in Male-Female Relations (New Guinea Research Bulletin 60; Canberra and Port Moresby, 1975), Table 1, p. 5, entry 3; William E. Mitchell, 'Wape,' Encyclopedia of World Cultures (1991)","source_display":"K. A. Gourlay, Sound-Producing Instruments in Traditional Society: A Study of Esoteric Instruments and Their Role in Male-Female Relations (New Guinea Research Bulletin 60; Canberra and Port Moresby, 1975), Table 1, p. 5, entry 3; William E. Mitchell, 'Wape,' Encyclopedia of World Cultures (1991)","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"wapei","display_name":"Wapei","image":{"full":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/europeana_348.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/thumbs/europeana_348_thumb.jpg","alt":"Iatmul bullroarer from the Middle Sepik, a broad wooden blade with a blunt end and a perforated, notched end.","credit":"Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum / Heinz-Günther Malenz (VI 57795)","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://recherche.smb.museum/detail/1835631","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"An Iatmul bull-roarer from the Middle Sepik."},"slug":"png3-wapei"}